


20 Stitches in the Hospital Room

by readytocomply (addictcas)



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Anal Sex, Avengers are Assembled, Bisexuality, Canon-Typical Violence, Cuddling & Snuggling, Dissociation, Emotionally Repressed, Fights, First Time, Frenemies Bucky Barnes & Sam Wilson, Hand Jobs, Hospital Sex, Hospitals, Hurt Steve Rogers, Love Confessions, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Oral Sex, Post-Civil War (Marvel), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Protective Bucky Barnes, Virgin Steve Rogers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-05
Updated: 2016-10-24
Packaged: 2018-08-13 03:22:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,694
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7960516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/addictcas/pseuds/readytocomply
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve is injured on a mission and Bucky reacts, well... like an over-protective super-soldier in love with his best friend.</p><p>Which is exactly what he is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The fic and chapter titles were chosen before I knew that the song "Out of the Woods" by Ryan Adams was a Taylor Swift cover. *hides behind binder*

“Steve! Stevie, come on, damnit. Medic!” Bucky presses his hands down–one of them is metal, why is it metal?–on the gaping wound on Steve’s neck when a smaller, feminine pair pulls them away.

“Maybe you should sit this out, Barnes,” the woman says. She isn’t dressed like a nurse, but still he lets her take over Steve’s injury.

“Where the hell are the medics?” Bucky yells. There’s so much blood. But it’s slowing, much more quickly than it should be.

“There aren’t any medics coming, Sarge,” comes a man’s voice from behind him. Bucky doesn’t recognize it, doesn’t even turn to look even when the guy grips him firmly by the upper arm and pulls him forcibly backward away from his dying best friend. The hand grabbing him feels metal, too. Why is there so much metal? “This isn’t war. At least, not the one you think you’re in.”

“It’s not–” he blinks, disoriented. The woman is Natasha Romanoff. Or that’s what they call her now. The voice behind him belongs to Tony Stark.

He looks at Steve’s paling, bloody face. Remembers hitting it, over and over.

_“You’re my mission.”_

“Oh, god. Oh, fuck. It happened again. I did this, didn’t I?”

“Barnes, listen to me,” the Black Widow… _Romanoff_ , says.

“Did I do this?” He leans forward toward Steve’s body; he’s still breathing. Bucky tries to keep breathing as well. “It happened again, I knew it would happen again.”

“Bucky,” Romanoff says sternly. She only uses the nickname when she knows he’s truly losing it. “Calm down. You didn’t do this.”

Bucky looks down at his cybernetic arm. “Did… did _he_ do it?”

He means the Winter Soldier. That’s what they’re reinforcing in all of his therapy sessions. His name is James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes. He is not and was not the Winter Soldier. The Soldier was a weapon of HYDRA, possessing no free will.

Only that’s a lie. He remembers every shot, every crushed trachea. Every man, woman, and child. HYDRA may have had control of his mind, but that mind still belonged to Bucky and held on to every last breath he stole from someone.

“No, _he_ didn’t,” the voice of the man holding him back tells him. Stark. Stark doesn’t believe the psychologist’s bullshit either, Bucky can tell from his spiteful tone and bruising grip.

“That guy did,” Romanoff tells him, pointing to a bloody and mangled mound lying about twenty feet away. Barton hands her a field kit with sutures and bandages. “One of Rumlow’s.”

“And then _you_ , Terminator, did _that_ to him,” Stark says, referring to the (dead?) agent.

“You _saved_ Rogers, is what the grim robot is trying to say," the ex-KBG agent tells Bucky.

Bucky is getting glimpses of it now. The knife plunging into Steve’s neck. Rumlow’s man smirking at him as his best friend falls limply to the ground with an agonized wail.

The first crunch of Bucky’s cybernetic arm collapsing the man’s cheekbone. The agent still smiling as he spits out blood.

“I betcha never had the balls to tell him how you felt.”

_Crack._

“I guess it’s too late now.”

He died, Bucky thinks, after the third bash to the skull with Steve’s shield. He kept going, though, until he looked down at the dripping Vibranium disk in his hand and remembered who it belonged to. He remembered why he was so brutally angry, and then he didn’t know what decade he was in or who surrounded him, just that the man he loved was dying.

He knows he lost it, though, in those moments of beating the agent’s brains to a pulp. He lost who he was, who Steve keeps telling him he is.

“Bucky.” Romanoff is holding his face now, a move she should know is dangerous considering his current state. She’s always been fearless, though. “ _You saved him._ ”


	2. Chapter 2

“You need sleep,” Wanda says to him. Bucky knows what she’s offering. A little twist of fingers and some glowing red mist will send a PTSD-ridden Avenger right into dreamland. “You’ve been watching him for hours. They’ll wake you up if there are any changes.”

“No, thank you,” he tells her. He appreciates the kindness she’s shown him but he’s had enough people in his head for several lifetimes. He can feel her gaze on him as he watches the slow rise and fall of Steve’s chest as he lies in the hospital bed.

“I know how much he means to you, but–”

“No, you don’t,” Bucky snaps, cutting her off. He regrets it immediately.

“Don’t mind him,” Sam pipes up from where he has been dozing in a chair on the other side of Steve’s bed. “He’s refusing Midol.”

Bucky ignores him. “I’m sorry,” he tells Wanda sincerely, looking up into her eyes. She’s young, but he can tell those eyes have seen way too much.

“Already forgiven,” she says with a small smile. “Sam, could we have a minute alone please?”

“Gladly,” Wilson says, sighing and pushing himself off of the seat. “But I hope you don’t expect to drag his heavy ass with me.” He nods over to Steve.

Bucky bites back the urge to tell him to just “get the fuck out.” He’s always tried to use proper language around women. It’s how he was raised.

Instead, he just glares at Wilson until the door closes behind him and then decides to stare intently at the cup of cheap hospital coffee in his hands. Anywhere but Wanda, who’s about to have some sort of talk with him that requires privacy.

It’s not that he doesn’t like Wanda. In fact, he admires her fiery spirit and feels a certain protectiveness over her. Bucky just isn’t too fond of one-on-one conversations with anyone besides Steve and on occasion a drunk Natasha. They tend to involve either stilted attempts at small talk or stilted attempts at deeper, more emotional talk.

“I heard what that agent said to you,” Wanda confesses quietly.

Bucky feels cold all over like he’s being re-frozen after another unstable outburst and a fresh memory wipe. He rotates Styrofoam coffee cup in his hands a few times before taking a deep sip, focusing on the heat sliding down his esophagus and into his stomach. It doesn’t make him feel any warmer.

“That was all bullshit,” he says, slipping up on his language. Before he can apologize, Wanda waves him off. “You know how HYDRA is.”

“All too well," she says sadly.

“Shit, I’m sorry, I wasn’t thinking.” He needs to just keep his damn mouth shut. He’s no good at talking to people anymore. Not like he used to be.

“You should tell him,” Wanda says, and Bucky isn’t sure which horrible topic change he prefers.

“It wasn’t bullshit,” she adds. “I could see it in your face. Even before this…” she manifests a little ball of that power that can tear down both buildings and minds, “I was always good at reading people.”

Bucky stares intently at the coffee cup in his hands again. It’s bitter and grainy, but so much better than anything he gulped down in the war, or while living with Steve in their crappy little cubicle of an apartment in Brooklyn when their heater wasn’t working. Especially if Steve was the one who brewed it. It’s nothing like Stark’s, of course, who’s probably been serving them that four hundred dollars per bag cat shit coffee because that’s what “classy” folks these days drink. God only knows why.

Bucky stares and stares… maybe Wanda will think he’s having a moment and forgot what they were talking about and she’ll just leave him to his crumbling sanity.

She doesn’t.

Wanda reaches down toward him and he immediately jerks away, sending his hot coffee tumbling through the air and down towards his lap.

Only it never reaches his legs, or thank god, his junk, because Wanda’s lightening-fast reflexes freeze the cup and the spilling liquid mid-fall, righting the mess with her mind and sending it to land straight-up on the little tray table next to Steve’s bed.

“I’m sorry,” Wanda blurts out, hands raised in a non-threatening gesture until she seems to realize that in her case it _is_ quite a threatening gesture and puts them behind her back. She takes a few quick steps away from Bucky.

“I wasn’t going to go into your head, I would never… I just find physical touch comforting, and–”

“Hey, hey, it’s alright,” Bucky says, trying to reassure himself as much as he’s trying to reassure her. “My mistake.”

Wanda wasn’t attacking him, she wasn’t going to try to brainwash him. She was probably just going to put a hand on his shoulder or something.

Bucky stands up, berating himself for the guilty, wide-eyed look on her face. He steps forward slowly at first, but once he realizes that Wanda’s not afraid of him he moves more assertively and wraps his arms around her.

“I do, too,” he tells her, referring to the comfort of another human being touching you in a way that’s not aggressive or violative. “I’m sorry,” Bucky whispers into her hair. “You know I trust you.”

Wanda pulls away and doesn’t press the matter further, instead bringing back one of the _other_ uncomfortable topics.

“You need to tell him.”

Bucky finds something to stare at again, his boots, this time. There’s blood spatter on them and Bucky’s not sure if it’s Steve’s or the HYDRA agent’s or even his own. He vaguely recalls butterfly bandages being applied to his forehead and gauze or tissue being stuck up his nose, all in Steve’s hospital room. Bucky remained rooted to the chair, eyes on his best friend, refusing the doctor’s orders to follow the nurses to the room they had set up for him. Knowing that there was no way they could physically move him without some sort of sedative, they let him stay.

Bucky kicks at one of the pristine white floor tiles, smearing blood across it. “You didn’t grow up with him,” he mumbles to the floor. “Church every Sunday, prayers every night. ‘God bless fucking America,’” Bucky says sourly.

“You haven’t been inside his head,” Wanda says gently. Bucky finally looks up at her.

“What are you talking about?”

“I can’t tell you exactly. I would be betraying his trust. But ask him about Sokovia, when I was with HYDRA. What he saw when I made the Avengers…” Wanda looks down and twirls one of her many rings. “When I made them feel true fear. Ask him to tell you what he saw.”

Bucky looks down at Steve, his squeaky-clean, God-fearing American hero. There’s no way in hell he returns even a _fraction_ of Bucky’s feelings. If Bucky came clean, he’d lose the only thing keeping him from flying apart at the seams.

“Look, Wanda, I know you’re trying to help, but we’ve fought wars together. Sometimes on the same team, sometimes not.”

“Trust me, you two are on the same team,” Wanda says with a wink, and Bucky’s jaw drops. She’s picking up on American double entendres rather quickly. Probably thanks to Scott Lang. Bucky would normally jump to blame Stark, but he's one of the many Avengers that treat her like a child. Scott is very (maybe a little too) candid with everyone.

Bucky clears his throat awkwardly and tries to recompose himself. If he was ever really composed at any point in the conversation in the first place.

“What I’m trying to say is that there’s a million and one ways you could have interpreted me being a part of a scary vision, that’s all.”

“I misinterpreted nothing,” Wanda tells him with a small smile. She’s looking at him the way she looks at those kittens in the videos on the internet that Scott makes them watch all too often in an attempt to “catch Steve and Bucky up on the times.” Bucky wishes that a cat playing the piano was the most significant thing to have happened since World War II ended.

“You just have to trust me,” Wanda says, “and tell him.”

She nods goodbye and turns to leave when Bucky grabs her by the wrist gently with his human arm.

“Thank you.” He means it, even if he’s not sure he’ll take her advice.

“You’re welcome, Sergeant Barnes. I’ll leave you to mope now.”

“Brat,” he teases as she steps out the door, talking more and more like Barton every day.

“And it’s Bucky!” he shouts through the now closed door. He knows she calls him Sergeant out of respect, but it fucks with his mind sometimes. James Buchanan Barnes, Sergeant Barnes, the Winter Soldier, the asset, the New Fist of HYDRA… he’s _Bucky_ , he tells himself.

Sam strolls through the door as Bucky repeats it in his head. Bucky Barnes, Bucky Barnes… only it’s Steve’s voice he hears it in. Gentle, reassuring. Loving?

Have there been signs? Has Steve had those sorts of inclinations and Bucky hadn’t even noticed?

“Good talk?” comes that gratingly cheery voice. “You’re gonna wear a hole in the floor, and I don’t think our insurance‒”

“How can you be so nonchalant about this right now? Steve could be _dying_ ,” Bucky scolds, his fear boiling over into anger. _This_ guy is the man who replaced Bucky as Steve’s right-hand man while James Barnes was presumed KIA?

“He’s not dying,” Sam says with that same composed tone he’s been using since they arrived at the hospital.

Bucky sits down at the bottom corner of Steve’s bed, wringing his metal hand in the scratchy blanket and wrapping his human hand‒the hand that can still _feel_ , around Steve’s covered ankle.

“Where were you?” Bucky asks, staring at his best friend but directing his question at Wilson. “Where the hell were you when this happened?”

“I had my own problems,” Sam says defensively. “I’m not Cap’s bodyguard. He’s a soldier, and a mighty good one if you haven’t noticed.”

“A reckless one,” Bucky adds.

They sit in tense silence for a minute before Wilson speaks up again. “You’re not the only one who’s got his back, you know.” His voice turns bitter and sad. “You’re not the one who spent years searching for a ghost, waking him up in the middle of the night while he screamed for someone he wasn’t even sure existed anymore.”

Bucky doesn’t respond, guilt tearing at his chest. He ran. He remembered who Steve Rogers was despite his programming and he ran. To keep Steve _safe_. At least that’s what Bucky tells himself.

“I was there. That whole time.” Sam adds more softly. “But he’s always been with you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the kudos, comments, bookmarks, etc, guys! It really helps me out. :)
> 
> Thanks to my straight friend Mike who puts up with all my gay and doesn't sugar-coat things when he beta-reads.
> 
> But also you guys should blame him for how long this chapter took, he challenged me and asked a lot of questions that had me re-writing a ton.


	3. Chapter 3

“You look like shit,” croaks Steve, startling Bucky out of the trance he was in while picking at a now-bleeding hangnail.

“Hey,” Bucky says, face hurting with how hard he’s smiling. “Language, pal.” He gets up and pats his friend on the cheek.

“How long was I out for?” Steve asks blearily. “And have you gotten any sleep?”

“Thirty-four hours,” Sam responds, making Steve jump. “On your left,” he teases. “And no, he hasn’t.”

“Nobody likes a tattletale,” Bucky says petulantly. “And you’ve done enough for the both of us, Sleeping Beauty,” he tells Steve. “Plus, it’d be just like you to do something stupid and dramatic like die on me the moment I dozed off.”

“Jerk,” Steve grumbles. He rubs at his neck, where the wound is, and rotates his head.

“Careful,” Bucky and Sam say in unison, and Bucky feels just a little more respect for Wilson. Despite how cocky and obnoxious Sam is, the guy does care about Steve. And he also did sort of go to prison for helping Bucky, although it was clearly just due to his loyalty to Captain America.

“Knife, right?” Steve asks.

“Yeah,” Bucky says, trying not to remember the sound the metal made as it slid through the flesh of his neck. The sound _Steve_ made.

“Doc says it’s almost healed,” Sam tells him. “But I wouldn’t do too much twisting around.”

“Got it,” Steve says. Then he laughs to himself.

“What. Could possibly. Be funny?” Bucky grinds out between clenched teeth. He’s spent the last three days panicked and sleep-deprived and this punk is amused about being _stabbed in the neck_.

“Howard Stark said HYDRA wouldn’t come at me with a knife.”

“ _I_ came at you with a knife,” Bucky says blankly, recalling the incident on the Project Insight ship.

“Bucky, that wasn’t you,” Steve recites like a goddamn broken record.

“Stop with that bullshit, Steve. I’m getting really fucking sick of it.” Bucky stands up, looming over Steve’s bed, trying to make himself look more intimidating. He has to with Steve now that they’re about matched in both size and (aside from the metal arm) strength.

Wilson is up in an instant, pushing himself between Bucky and the bed. “Woah, man. Take it down a notch.” He’s holding that remote in his hand, the one that controls his little robotic pet.

“Jesus Christ, you think I’m gonna hurt him?” Bucky yells, backing Sam up against the bed and making him flinch.

“You just admitted to coming at him with a knife! Which, as I recall, you stabbed him with.”

Steve is staring up at them silently but he doesn’t look afraid. More curious. And a little guilty.

“Do I look brainwashed to you right now? You’re Sam Wilson, the one of the flying prick I just barely put up with.” He gestures to the bed behind Sam, causing the other man’s finger to fly to the red trigger button on the remote. “That’s Steven Grant Rogers, my best friend. I wouldn’t hurt a goddamn hair on his head.”

“You tried to kill him,” Sam says defiantly. “You nearly succeeded.”

“I didn’t know who he was! I wasn’t‒”

“Yourself?” Sam asks, pocketing the drone remote and relaxing his posture.

Bucky’s anger skyrockets. He realizes now why Steve had stayed silent the whole time. It was all part of a twisted, reverse-psychology plan.

“You sons of bitches,” he spits out, and then he hits Sam. He uses his flesh hand with not even a quarter of his enhanced strength, but it’ll sure as hell give him a swollen lip. There’s already a bead of blood bubbling to the surface.

“Get out,” he orders Wilson, who quickly obliges.

Bucky is left alone with Steve, who, for all it’s worth, does look ashamed.

“I want you to say it,” Steve still has the nerve to say.

“What?” Bucky asks, glaring at his friend, trying to get him to look away. He doesn’t. His resolve won’t be scared away. It never could be. Not by bullies twice his size in back alleys, not from alien-weapon-wielding Nazis.

“Do you want a ‘thank you’ for fucking with my emotions? Because you’re not gonna get one.” It’s killing Bucky to yell at Steve like this, but scheming with Sam to play mind games with Bucky when he was already so frayed was beyond low.

“No, I want you to say that it wasn’t you.”

Bucky is the one to look away. Steve has always been the stronger one. Bucky is the one who breaks.

“That’s what you want, huh? Well, I want some goddamn peace in here!” He taps on his head with a metal finger, hard. The noise seems to ring all the way through his skull and Steve cringes.

“I had HYDRA blending my brain and tearing apart my sanity for decades, and sure, it doesn’t surprise me that your boyfriend would do it, but I didn’t really expect you to stoop down to HYDRA’s level.”

Bucky hates himself as soon as the words leave his mouth. “I didn’t mean that.”

He expects a tirade from Steve at the harsh words, maybe even a punch. Because Bucky knows that comparing Captain America to the brainwashing terrorists that are still tearing their lives apart is probably on the top three list of “Worst Things You Could Possible Say to Steve Rogers.” Surprisingly, Steve just scoots over in the small bed and pats the space next to him.

“You’re exhausted. We’ll talk about this after you’ve rested.”

Bucky clenches his fists, not sure whether he’s more annoyed at or grateful for Steve’s coddling.

“Steve, no. I need to explain.”

“Later,” Steve says, yawning. “I have apologizing to do, too.”

“You’re going back to sleep? Just like that?”

“I’m on very strong painkillers and I need my beauty rest. And so do you, buddy. Like I said, you look like shit.”

When Bucky fails to move, Steve puts on the best “Commanding Officer” voice he can muster while being half-asleep and drugged-up. “Get in the bed, Barnes. That’s an order.”

“Yes, sir,” Bucky says sarcastically with a mock salute, climbing into the bed. His head is spinning from the emotional whiplash the past ten minutes of dialog has jerked him through.

They are way too big to share the bed, so their sides are pressed together warmly. Bucky’s not quite sure where they stand right now so he lies flat on his back with his hands crossed over his stomach, trying to give Steve room.

“Buck,” Steve urges. Bucky knows what he wants. And then it’s just like old times again, Bucky’s arm wrapped around Steve’s waist, nose tucked against his neck. Back when Steve was small and sick and their shitty heater never worked. Only now he's bigger and warmer and at the moment, not rattling out wet coughs. So why does Steve want this now?

Bucky pushes the question aside and is asleep within seconds.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for all the positive feedback! Sorry for taking so long to update, I have so much stuff to type out. This was supposed to be a two-shot fluffy porn but then I got plot-blocked blocked by feels.

Bucky wakes up to the distinct smell of rubbing alcohol and blood, something that has him jerking upright in an instant.

“Easy, Buck,” Steve says, rubbing the back of his friend’s neck for a moment. “Just getting my stitches changed.”

“Where’s Birdman?” Bucky asks. Besides a young female nurse, the room is empty.

“Once I woke up everyone decided to give us some space,” Steve explains. “Plus you may have scared Sam off,” he jokes.

“All done, Captain Rogers… America… sir,” the nurse rambles, blushing.

“You can just call me Steve, miss,” Steve says, throwing on the charm that’s more polite than flirtatious.

She nods and smiles. Bucky smirks at how flustered he made her.

“Well, Cap–Steve, you should be ready for discharge in just a few hours. Your wound is healing very well.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Steve says. The nurse giggles a little before making her exit, accidentally bumping against the corner of the bed on the way out.

“The ladies sure go after you now, now that you’re all big and buff and saving the world,” Bucky says, part with amusement and part with resentment. Dames wouldn’t give him a second glance when he was just a scrawny kid from Brooklyn. Bucky loved him then. Bucky wanted him then. He knew him as a hero before the serum, back when he was getting his ass kicked by bullies and rescuing injured animals. Steve has always had the courage and the heart, but it wasn’t until he got the brawn that he became a “heartthrob.”

“Yeah,” Steve replies, somewhat bashfully. “Still terrible at talking to them, though.”

“You seem to be doin’ well enough. Even got that pretty blonde agent to lay one on you.” Bucky winks.

Steve shrugs awkwardly. “So about that talk.”

_ Way to change the subject. _

“I’m sorry,” Bucky says, patting Steve on the shoulder. “It was wrong, comparing you to HYDRA, and–”

“No,” Steve cuts him off. “Sam and I shouldn’t have done that.”

“You were just trying to help, as horribly played out your plan was.” Bucky forgives Steve, but he’s still a little bitter about the whole ploy.

“It was wrong, and the timing made it even worse,” Steve admits. He looks down at his hands. One has an IV taped in place and a vitals detector clamped onto his pointer finger. Steve plays with the latter a little. “I knew you were broken up about what happened on the mission. But I didn’t know how badly. What you went through, out on the field.” Steve’s voice cracks a little. The other Avengers must have filled him in on Bucky’s little dissociative episode.

“I’ve had worse,” Bucky says nonchalantly.

“I didn’t expect Sam to pull that then. If I had known more about what happened–I should’ve stopped it. Either way.”

“Let’s just call it even,” Bucky tells him, holding out his hand to shake. Steve accepts. Bucky knows that his best friend feels at least just as regretful as Bucky does. They both made mistakes.

“Deal, jerk.”

“Punk,” Bucky quips back. He pauses, then looks at Steve sadly. “I thought you were gonna die.” His voice breaks. “I thought you were gonna die and never even know…”

Bucky goes silent. He sits up, grabbing an extra pillow a nurse must’ve brought and settling it between his back and the wall.

“Know what?” Steve asks. All teasing is over now.

Bucky has no idea what to say.

“Buck?”

Bucky shifts nervously. “There’s something I need to tell you. But I don’t know if I can. It kinda depends, really.”

“On what?” Steve asks, looking Bucky right in the eyes.

“On what Wanda Maximoff made you see in Sokovia. When you first met.”

Steve breaks eye contact first. That never happens during uncomfortable talks. His cheeks turn a little pink, too. “I wouldn’t exactly call it a meeting.”

Steve doesn’t normally deflect like this, either.

“Steve,” Bucky encourages, trying not to sound as anxious and impatient as he is.

“Bucky, you don’t wanna hear about that.”

“And why is that?” Bucky challenges.

There’s another silent pause. This conversation is not going very far. As scared as Bucky is, he wants answers.

“I don’t want to lose you,” Steve says quietly.

“Nothing you could possibly say could make that happen,” Bucky assures him.

_ I’m with you ‘til the end of the line, pal. _

Steve runs a hand through his already messy hair. “It’ll change things.”

“Maybe for the better,” Bucky says gently. His heart is hammering right now. Bucky is glad he’s not attached to a monitor. Curiously, he looks at Steve’s pulse. It’s gone up quite a bit. Bucky is nervous, but for the first time in a long time, he feels optimistic.

“Can’t Wanda just show you?” Steve asks weakly. All of his normal courageous bravado has melted away.

“Steve, you know how I feel about people poking around in my head.”

Steve adjusts his pillow for longer than Bucky feels is necessary and leans back against it the way his friend is. “Could you pass me my water?”

Bucky realizes his hand is shaking when he grabs the cup of water from the tray table. That’s a nervous tell that disappeared decades ago, back when he was training for the army. Bucky tries to steady it as he hands the water to his friend who drinks it slowly. Steve is stalling.

“I won’t judge you, you know. No matter what.”

Steve keeps drinking. He drinks until the straw makes a gurgling sound and then he shakes the ice chips around in the cup.

Bucky groans impatiently and takes the cup away, putting it back on the table.

“Talk to me. Please.”

Steve starts picking at the blanket in his lap and Bucky grabs one of his friend’s hands with his right one. He squeezes Steve’s hand reassuringly.

“It’s not pretty,” Steve tells him.

“Most of the stuff I tell you is not pretty.”

Steve nods and looks down at their joined hands. He looks a little surprised, like he just noticed. Steve gives Bucky’s hand a quick squeeze and takes a deep breath.

“So, Wanda made us see things we were most afraid of. At first, mine wasn’t so bad.

“I was at a dance hall with Peggy. She was all dolled up in that red dress and heels. She was telling me the war was over. Only I was small, like before the serum. It didn’t seem to matter to Peggy, though.” Steve pauses and smiles to himself. “She noticed me before I was Captain America.”

_ So did I, _ Bucky thinks, annoyed. Is this story about Peggy Carter? What does that have to do with Bucky and what he wants to tell Steve?

“Peggy asked me to dance. She told me she’d show me how.”

Bucky snorts. “Of course your biggest fear would be dancing with a woman.” He doesn’t say it out of spite, more out of an attempt to make Steve feel more comfortable.

“I wish that was it,” Steve says grimly. Then he continues. “I did alright at first, but then I stepped on her foot. I apologized and looked down at our feet, but I saw…”

Steve leans his head back. His breath is shaky and his heart rate and blood pressure are rising steadily.

Bucky takes a chance and rubs his thumb over Steve’s knuckles. They’ve always been pretty physically affectionate with each other, but Bucky has never made such an intimate gesture. It seems to calm Steve down a bit. “It’s okay,” Bucky tells him.

“I didn’t see heels. I saw boots.” Bucky’s head spins as Steve speaks. “And when I looked up I saw you, dressed like you were the night before you shipped off to England.”

Bucky’s breath hitches. Steve was thinking about dancing with him. He continues rubbing his friend’s knuckles. Bucky knows things are about to go south.

“You called me a clutz but just kept dancing with me. Only I was the lady now. Your hand was on my waist.” Steve is blushing all the way down to the exposed part of his chest now. “Buck, I’m sorry, this must be making you uncomfortable. I shouldn’t be telling you this.” 

Steve tries to pull his hand away but Bucky grips it firmly. “No, it’s not making me uncomfortable. Unless you’re telling me your worst fear is having to dance with  _ me _ instead of your gal. If so, that stings a little.”

Steve looks at him finally, eyes squinted. “Really?”

“Really. I promise. Continue, please.”

Steve looks back at their joined hands again. “And then you kissed me,” he says quietly. Steve’s body gets tense, like he’s waiting for that negative, disgusted reaction that Bucky was fearing he would get from Steve when he opened up. When no outburst follows, Steve continues, voice a little louder. “You kissed me in front of everyone. I pulled back and looked around but no one cared.”

“Stevie,” Bucky whispers. He wants to grab his friend and kiss him now, because Steve saw them together in the way that Bucky has always wanted them to be. But the story isn’t over yet.

“And then all hell broke loose. SHIELD agents were bursting through every door. They tore us apart. All of their guns were pointed at you. The agents, hell, even the old-fashioned folks in the dance hall were shouting about the Winter Soldier and HYDRA. You looked so confused and terrified and I couldn’t fight them off, I was too weak. You had no idea what they were yelling about and nobody would listen to me that it wasn’t you.”

Steve sniffles and Bucky sees that his eyes are wet. He’s not crying, but he looks like he’s on the verge. Bucky reaches up and cups the back of Steve’s head with his metal hand and brings his lips to Steve’s forehead.

“You can stop,” Bucky tells him as he pulls away.

“It’s okay,” Steve says. He looks dazed after the kiss to the forehead. Steve actually reaches up and touches the spot as if that would confirm it really happened.

Bucky clears his throat. “‘M sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Steve says. He still sounds confused, like Bucky hasn’t made it clear enough that he returns his affections. Maybe they’ve both been idiots. Unless the kiss in Steve’s vision was part of the terror and Bucky completely misunderstood and Steve is just trying to be polite. Now Bucky is overthinking things, doubting himself.

Bucky starts to focus again when Steve grips his hand tightly and doesn’t loosen his hold as he continues talking. “And then Rumlow was there. He dragged you onto your knees right in front of me.” Steve’s voice is shaking like he’s never heard it before. At least not coming from a healthy Steve. “Peggy came out from behind the agents with a gun, still dressed in the dress and heels she was dancing in. I begged and pleaded that you weren’t who they thought you were, tried to tell her that Rumlow was HYDRA. She didn’t respond to any of that, just lifted the gun to your head–God, the way you were looking up at me… scared to death, crying, even. Peggy looked me straight in the eyes and said, ‘I’m sorry, Steve.’ Then she pulled the trigger.”

Steve’s hand is shaking now and Bucky rubs soothing circles over it with his thumb.

“Well, shit,” he says, at a loss for words. How the hell does someone respond to a nightmare like that? A nightmare that Bucky had to drag Steve right back through in order to have the courage to tell him how he feels. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have pushed the topic.”

Steve sighs and leans his head back against the wall. “Why? Because it changes things?” He once again tries to pull his hand out of Bucky’s grasp but again his attempt is resisted.

“No, you idiot. Because it hurt you.” Bucky sits forward and adjusts his position so that he’s in Steve’s line of sight. His friend stares down at the blanket. “Look at me, Stevie.”

Steve’s weary and bloodshot eyes finally meet his and Bucky says, “But it does change things.”

There’s a flicker of sadness across Steve’s features before he turns away. Steve clearly misunderstood.

It’s frustrating, how stupid they’ve both been for God knows how long. So Bucky lets go of Steve’s hand and grabs him by the face.

“Come here, you dumbass.” Then he pulls Steve towards him and kisses him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay so I have to thank my sister for editing this and for writing the comment quoting Hercules lyrics "HE WAS A NO ONE, A ZERO ZERO. NOW HE'S A HONCHO, HE'S A HEROOOOO." when Bucky was thinking about how girls didn't look at him before the serum. It cracked me up.
> 
> Next chapter... smut! Finally.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to my sister and my pervy friend Mike for the beta-reads. Feedback means the world to me, so leave a comment if you like. :)


End file.
